People often ask: Where did Mozilla Webmaker come from? And, how does it fit into the big picture of Mozilla’s mission? There are loads of materials online that answer these questions. I figured I should create a ‘reading’ list for would be web makers that pulls together some of the main threads. Here it is.

1. The Story of Mozilla

This video is a great place to start. In 3 minutes, you get primer on how Mozilla used Firefox to keep the web alive and on where we are headed next with mobile and web literacy. The main take away: Mozilla is a global community of people creates compelling products and experiences that build openness into the internet. This is an important foundational idea to get. It’s how Mozilla thinks about itself.

2. The Mozilla Manifesto

While it could use an update, the Manifesto is still a solid foundation answering the question: what should Mozilla be working on right now? The Webmaker initiative has it’s roots in the principle that “… individuals must have the ability to shape their own experiences on the Internet.” This almost is impossible unless individuals have some basic literacy in how the web works and how to program it. That’s why Mozilla is making such a big bet on web literacy. The Manifesto also says that Mozilla should “build and deliver great consumer products that support [these] principles.” This is why we’re working so hard on Thimble, Popcorn and high quality remixable content: we believe compelling online creativity apps are powerful way to promote web literacy.

3. Creating a web literate planet

In September 2011, I started a series of blog postings outlining the basic web maker concept and asking for feedback. These posts argued that “… Mozilla has an opportunity to build the next generation of web makers.” They also set out the basic idea that we need both teach and build tools that encourage creativity, tinkering and invention on the web. These posts formed the touchstone for what we’re actually building in 2012. You can read them in order as a set or go back to ‘#nextbeat’ tag in my blog. While the #nextbeat version is confusing (you have to read from the bottom up as they are in reverse order), it’s also more interesting as it includes all the original comments and public discussion about the webmaker concept.

4. Mozilla Webmaker 2012 plans

By the end of 2012, we’d agreed to put significant resources toward what is now called Mozilla Webmaker. Our top level goal was to “… roll Mozilla’s best software and learning resources into a simple ‘kit’ for web makers.” Practically, this meant building Hackasaurus, Popcorn, Hive, Open News and many other efforts we’d started under the Mozilla Drumbeat banner into a cohesive offering and brand. I posted an overview of our plans to do this in February 2012, including links to team-specific plans. There is also a wiki page with the top level Webmaker goals and objectives approved by the Mozilla Foundation board in December 2011. As I thought experiment, I recently did a July MoFo Goals Review. While we’ve still go work to do, we’re tracking well.

5. Campus Party talk on the web and creativity

Now that we’re almost a year into the Webmaker conversation, I’ve been turning my mind back to the question: what’s the big picture strategy we need to keep the web open and vibrant? At the broadest level, I think the answer is a mix of products, literacy and public policy that bake the values of the Mozilla Manifesto into the web and into our expectations of how the web works. Mozilla’s three big projects right now — Firefox, Firefox OS and Webmaker — cover the product and literacy bases. We also need to find a way to shape policy, at least in cases where it threatens the web. I did a talk recently at Campus Party Europe that looks these things through a big picture lens. It’s rough and a bit long, but this talk is worth watching if you want to situate Mozilla Webmaker within the context of keeping the web open for the very long haul.

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Of course, these five posts are just a primer. There are thousands of posts and reflections that people have written about the webmaker concept. And there is even more out there on the broader topic of web literacy. I’d be interested in hearing what other reading you find helpful or inspirational on this topic. If something comes to mind, please post a link as a comment below.